The frustration and vital weariness of Michel des Assantes, a prestigious plastic surgeon in Paris, is unbearable: he has a wife whom he does not love, a son who is foreign to him and ...
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Storyline

The frustration and vital weariness of Michel des Assantes, a prestigious plastic surgeon in Paris, is unbearable: he has a wife whom he does not love, a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life. One day, he buys a bike from a bizarre cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the journey: then, Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land.Written by
jsanchez

User Reviews

This is a mediocre Berlanga film , though full of sourness and deep critical . Spanish coral film dealing with a merciless denounce to hypocrite society located at a coastal village , being regularly directed by veteran Berlanga and full of a high level of profanities , piggy humor , nudism , including critical in malevolent intention . It packs an absurd script written by the same director , and collaboration of his son Jorge ; furthermore , Joaquín Oristrell collaborated on the screenplay for over a month . The frustration and vital weariness of Michel Assantes (Michael Piccoli) , a notorious surgeon in Paris, is unbearable : he has a spouse (Mapi Galán) whom he does not love , a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life . One day , he buys a bike from a cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the trip . He arrives in Calabuch where he meets curious characters , as three weird brothers : Trini (Concha Velasco) , Gaby (Javier Gurruchaga) , Encarna (Amparo Soler Leal) , a nudist mechanic named Boronat (Juan Diego) , a rare priest (Santiago Segura) , among others .

In this average flick there is especially busy comedy , ironical humor , frantic pace , joy , amusing gags , rowdy satire , noisy hustle and social critical . Furthermore , it contains certain confusion , bustle and relies heavily in exaggerated mayhem ; being in anyway clearly an inferior film , and far from Berlanga's masterpieces. But the main problem is that if you are foreigner you will have to know well the Spanish society to understand the double-senses . Shot in long , complex shots : ¨Planos Secuencia¨, with a lot of bizarre roles talking , shouting and walking . We can find big fun , caricatures and mirrors of the Spanish society of the 2000s , concerning the national reality in ironical style . It belongs to the last period in Berlanga career characterized by commercial and comical films , adding a point of view as acid as surrealist . It turned out to be a middling picture plenty of diverting situations as well as black humor and social hypocrisy . Here Berlanga returns to ¨Cabaluch¨/Peñiscola , again with a foreign man (there was Edmund Gwenn as an atomic scientific and here Michael Piccoli as a prestigious surgeon who escapes from Paris to Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land) and ¨El Jueves Milagro¨ with the peculiar Saint called St. Dimas , however both films were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by a relentless critical to Catholic religion . The movie displays a Spanish star-studded such as : Concha Velasco who lobbied heavily for her role on the movie, as she wanted to work with Berlanga for years , Amparo Soler Leal (Berlanga's also regular) , Fedra Lorente , Antonio Resines , Guillermo Montesinos , and , of course , a brief acting of the forgotten stage actor : Luis Escobar who steals the show .

Final movie of Luis García Berlanga is pretty mediocre , here very far from the tenderness carried out in previous works , including a bitter , pessimistic mirror on the Spanish society by that time . He shows his skill for edition , realizing long shots with crowd who moves easily . The long Berlanga's career began during the 50s when filmed several polemic movies , all of them were beset by difficulties with the censors caused by real critical to social stratum such as ¨Bienvenido Mister Marshall¨ (1953) , a very good film which tended not to be very well received by the censor for its acidity and considered to be one of the best Spanish films of the history , including a strong portrait of society and plenty of sharpness . His next joint venture was ¨Los Jueves, Milagro¨ (1957), it delayed for several years before its eventual release . Subsequently , he made ¨Placido¨ (1961) , this is the film debut for the great producer Alfredo Matas and received an Oscar nomination in 1963 , being well-received at the International Festivals , reviewing the useless charity . Later on , Berlanga made one of his best films: ¨El Verdugo¨ (1963), one of the undisputed masterpieces and fundamental in filmography of Berlanga and shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime, exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . He continued filming other interesting pictures as in 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming ¨Grandeur nature¨ with Michael Piccoli , another problematic film , focusing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll . Several years later , after Franco's death and one time finished the Franquist dictatorship , Berlanga along with his regular screenwriter Azcona carry out the realization a known trilogy about the social Spanish situation , concerning on the peculiar aristocratic family of the Marquis of Leguineche . He filmed a trilogy comprising ¨La Escopeta Nacional¨ (1978), ¨Patrimonio Nacional¨ (1981) dealing with monarchy restoration . Its big success originated another sequel , ¨Nacional III¨ (1982), about the power rising of Socialists and where he clarified the evident disorders in the Spanish upper , middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo , realizing a sour denounce of the Spanish society . He shot a peculiar film titled ¨La Vaquilla¨ (1985) set in the Spanish Civil War , resulting to be the first time dealing with this convulsive period in comedy style . Following the same themes, he went on filming coral films such as ¨Moros and Cristianos¨ and ¨Todos a Carcel¨ (1993) that won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound .

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